


I’ll hold your chipped cup with care.

by youngjusticewriter



Series: Oops I did it again. [6]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Cassandra Cain, Batman: The Killing Joke, Canon-Typical Violence, Found Family, Gen, Good Sibling Cassandra Cain, Hurt and comfort, Joker is his own warning, Mute Cassandra Cain, Previous child abuse, Time Travel, alternative universe canon divergence, first chapter is short
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 18:33:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20493344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngjusticewriter/pseuds/youngjusticewriter
Summary: There are some events in your life that change your world. Cassandra’s world is yanked up from under her with the sound of a doorbell, a few words, and a gunshot.





	I’ll hold your chipped cup with care.

Cassandra prefers this little house over the large one the other members of the family live in. There are fewer exits to watch over, no blue eyes expecting more from her like that desire of more being natural which makes Cassandra’s skin itch, it’s quiet, and the older man with a kind smile isn’t guarding the kitchen like a dog would it’s owner’s home. 

The tile of the kitchen is cold against her feet and she wiggles her toes (they kept trying to give her clothes to put on her feet but she likes them bare) as she opens the cupboard above the dark drink dispenser. Cassandra likes the quietness of the morning and she wishes she could keep it longer today but Barbara - the woman with hair like fire, dark circles on her eyes, who smells like books but keeps the company of the humming machine in her lap that she communicates with the other members - would be visiting her father later. (Her father has hair like fire too but it’s greying, it’s old, at the sides, he has dark circles under his eyes which look older than his hair despite there not being any grey in them, he smells like the dark drink Cassandra is making now, and he often talks to the others at night when they’re donning the bat on their chests.) 

Cassandra, after putting the thin paper in the basket and scooping out five things of grains, walks away from the dispenser to fetch the second last thing needed. 

It never stops amazing her how houses can simply have access to water when she’s spent years without having such accessibility to it. It had been hard to obtain it, to stop feeling so hot and heavy because she had gone too long without it, in her years on her own. Once the cup fills up Cassandra turns it off even though she will be needing another cup full. Barbara would do that, would leave it running because she would be back at the sink shortly, but Barbara hasn’t often gone without it. Cassandra has; in the short time she had stayed at the manor only two others had understood. Oh, the older man hadn’t pointlessly raised his voice but that didn’t mean he understood.

Once the water is right below the line Cassandra switches it on. The button turns green when you push it to left side to let you know it is working. As she waits for the pot to be filled and the air to smell of the drink, Cassandra rips the stems of two bananas away from the others. They have fallen into a thing, Cassandra makes Barbara her drink since she wakes up before the other and Barbara made food once she was awake enough, still it will be a while before older woman is awake so Cassandra goes ahead and has something. Barbara doesn’t mind that Cassandra eats a lot long as long as she not eat everything. The same could not be said about the older man in the big house - the one who guards the kitchen - who spoke to her in a soft voice. 

The smell of the drink has filled the air now. It’s a mouth watering smell but the taste of it is bitter on her tongue so Cassandra does not drink it and she most certainly does not drink it like her life depends on it like the others do. Cassandra threw away the banana skins before she goes to grab the cup Barbara likes. It’s broken at top, a piece of it missing from a fall that was too hard, but, still, this is the one the older woman loves. (Perhaps it was weird to be touched by that care Barbara has for it but still Cassandra handles the cup with care even though Cassandra had only been taught to break and then discard things. Expect it wasn’t things her father made her break. No, it had been people and one day he had made her break a person where it wasn’t just a chip at the top or even at the handle but it had been the whole cup she had broken. He had expected her to discard the damage she had inflicted on that cup, on that person, but it was something that had made her run away and the memory of that person she had shattered was something that Cassandra still carried inside herself.) 

When she’s poured the drink into the cup Cassandra makes her to the only other bedroom in the small house. The door isn’t locked so Cassandra doesn’t need to hurt it to get in. The sight of Barbara makes Cassandra’s lips twist. The older woman had been working even after sparring with her and patrolling last night if the small machine on the bed was anything to go by. 

It’s not that Cassandra doesn’t want Barbara doing these things. No, Cassandra didn’t want her friend doing them so much. Not sleeping could get you killed in their lives. Oh, it could get you killed in life in general but in their lives it was especially true. Exhaustion could lead to one slip, a duck too slow, and thing misread and  
that one thing was all that needed for a person to die sometimes. 

Cassandra’s hand is soft when she puts it on Barbara and when she shakes the older woman it’s gentle too. Blue eyes flutter open before they are closed slightly and words are spoken softly to her. Cassandra doesn’t know their meaning but she knows how to read people and she comes to know Barbara. Because of that she sits on the edge of where Barbara sleeps and waits with that chipped cup in her hand until Barbara was ready to take it.

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know if I like this but it’s better to start with a beginning you don’t like than to never begin at all.


End file.
